My story is made up. Fiction.
If the moon is shining, or if it's hiding its face -- only I as creator know the truth.
True enough.
But.....
It's historical fiction.
And that means it's a made up story that takes place within a real time period.
So. . . if the moon wasn't really shining on July 4, 1832, let's say, shouldn't my characters have a hard time seeing in the dark?
Oh, please. Nobody's going to know if the moon was shining on a certain day that long ago!
But what if somebody did know, and my credibility as a writer fell apart?
It's beat-your-head-against-the-wall-and-go-do-your-research time.
The whole time I was looking up moon phases for 1838 I kept muttering, "This is ridiculous!"
When I opened my wiki and put the new, half and full moons on the calendars for my book, I stopped muttering.
When I got to the day I'd been writing about, and saw how the moon phase affected how I would write the scene I was working on (i.e., no, my characters wouldn't be able to see each other after the storm, because the moon was in the new stage -- they'd be lucky to see the hand in front of their face!), I moaned. I had to change EVERYTHING!
BUT -- wow! My scene is so much better now. As a writer I had to rely on all senses other than the visual.
And let's face it -- if I hadn't forced myself to be true to history (even if I was the only one who knew) I would've taken the easy route, and there ALWAYS would've been a full moon illuminating faces!
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